When Florida researchers have a great idea for a new drug or other technology, they can hire private consultants to help bring their brainchild to life in the marketplace. Or they can get business help—for free—from the state-run tech incubator. That organization is saying, it’s been so successful that the Florida Legislature should invest five times as much in it this year.
Florida State University professor and researcher Jacob VanLandingham has developed a drug he said should reduce the long-term effects of brain injury after a concussion:
“You have issues with memory impairment, attention deficit, issues with headaches, nausea, vertigo, for months to years after the fact, increased risk of suicide,” he said.
If he raises enough money and gets FDA approval, VanLandingham will be able to sell the concussion drug, Prevasol. And he said, the difference between life and death for his drug has been the help he’s gotten from the state-funded Florida Institute for the Commercialization of Public Research, based in Gainesville.
He said, “Being able to put in play all the articles of incorporation, being able to have a lawyer who could start teaching me how to raise money, being able to start understanding what the safety measures were to make sure that I didn’t do something that was against the law...I mean, it was just so many different things that I would have never known.”
The Institute’s free services for researchers include management inventories and overhauls to help them attract private investors. And Institute CEO Jamie Grooms, said, in the year since he’s taken the helm, 19 companies have also gotten loans from the Institute’s $10 million fund.
Grooms, who started two successful biotech companies of his own, said, part of his reason for heading the Institute is selfish.
“One of my daughters wants to be a biomedical engineer, and she asked me to start up a daddy-daughter company,” he said. “And I don’t want to leave Florida. This new community of startup and entrepreneurship has started, and I’m bought into it.”
So, Grooms is asking the Legislature to multiply the Institute’s fund by five this year. He sees it like this: With the state-funded institute investing $50 million of its money, more start-ups would become viable enough to attract private investors. And when more tech companies succeed, research experts say, the whole state economy should benefit.
Jack Sullivan, who directs the nonprofit Florida Research Consortium, said, “Every mission statement of any chamber, any organization involved with economic development has in it: “high-wage, high-skill, high-value jobs.”
And he said, one great way to create high-paying jobs is to nurture high-tech startups. And he said, researchers need more funding. Florida ranks 42nd in the nation for money invested in research and development, as compared to its gross state product.
“So we are well below our fighting weight in terms of the ideas that we produce,” Sullivan said.
FSU’s VanLandingham said, the additional funding from the state could keep a whole lot more ideas from ending up in the graveyard, like his almost did.
“If the state would make a commitment to entice other people with great ideas to take this chance, you would really see a lot of improvements in a lot of people’s lives,” he said.
Sen. Jeremy Ring (D-Margate) has filed a bill that would start the $50 million dollar fund with general revenue money. And the fund would grow over time when successful companies eventually buy out the state’s share. A companion bill is expected soon in the House.
Last time the Institute requested funding, the Legislature gave it only $10 million of the $25 million requested.
Correction: A previous version of this story referred to Sen. Ring as a Republican. He is a Democrat.
Correction: The original version of this story reported that Florida ranks 46th in the nation for research and development funding. The correct ranking is 42.